Tolling agency's leader plans to join an employee exodus

Updated 10:38 pm, Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Photo: Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News

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Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Executive Director Terry Brechtel (right) shakes hands with Bexar County Commissioner Paul Elizondo at the unveiling of the new U.S. 281 North to Loop 1604 East and West Direct Connector on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. Also in attendance for the unveiling were State Senator Jeff Wentworth (from left), Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Executive Director Terry Brechtel (right) shakes hands with Bexar County Commissioner Paul Elizondo at the unveiling of the new U.S. 281 North to Loop 1604 East and West Direct

Days after it was revealed that more than half the employees of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority would lose their jobs by early March, the agency's executive director, former San Antonio City Manager Terry Brechtel, said she, too, would resign by May 1.

Brechtel sent the board a letter Wednesday afternoon, announcing she would step down after seven years with the tolling agency.

“I find myself in the difficult position of realizing that the successes of the past hold no promise for the future,” Brechtel wrote.

Reached by phone, she had little further comment.

“It is time for me to move on,” she said, adding that Interim RMA Board Chairman Robert Thompson asked her to stay until May. They agreed she'll leave earlier if hired somewhere else.

Brechtel's departure marks the end of a fraught several months for the Alamo RMA, beginning with a directive by Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff last June that the organization needed to dramatically cut its costs and that Commissioners Court would take over the agency's operations.

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Commissioners later decided to absorb some of the RMA employees but then chose to instead pursue legislation that would give the county the agency's powers, including the ability to issue toll bonds. That strategy also has been dropped.

In September, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff asked TxDOT to again take over those studies, which must be finished before any major expansion or construction — including the addition of toll roads — can take place on those two corridors. Without toll roads, the RMA had no incoming revenue.

Brechtel was hired as the Alamo RMA executive director in November 2005, a little more than a year after she resigned as city manager following a tense standoff with then-Mayor Ed Garza. She came to the RMA two years after it was formed, as a way to expedite road projects and ensure local control of any future tolling revenue.

While the agency mission has changed, Thompson said the board will remain in place and the regional mobility authority concept remains valuable.